Body of missing 11-year-old girl found in southern Md. waters

The body of an 11-year-old girl who went missing while playing on a sandbar Friday was found in waters off Cobb Island in southern Maryland on Sunday, according to the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office.

The girl was identified as Faith Janee Lee, of Chaptico, the sheriff's office said. He family has been notified.

The body was taken to the office of the chief medical examiner for autopsy, officials said. Foul play is not suspected.

About 2 p.m. Sunday, a boater on the Wicomico River near Cobb Island saw a body in the water near the 17400 block of Rock Point Road and called police, said Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman with the Charles County Sheriff's Office.

Candus Thomson, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Natural Resources Police, said the girl was first reported missing from the Mill Point Shores area of Mechanicsville in St. Mary's County on Friday.

The Wicomico River serves as a boundary between St. Mary's and Charles counties, and Cobb Island — in St. Mary's — is downstream from Mill Point Shores, in Charles.

The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office released a statement saying its criminal investigations division had taken over the investigation. They and other agencies, including DNR, had been searching for the girl for days.

The discovery of the body was just one of multiple incidents on Maryland waterways that the DNR was responding to Sunday.

In another, a 70-year-old man from the town of Tyaskin near the Nanticoke River in Wicomico County died in a boating related incident, Thomson said.

The man, who was not identified, was with his wife when he stopped his boat on the Wetipquin Creek to let his dogs loose on the shore. When his boat began floating away, the man swam out after the boat and had a heart attack, Thomson said.

The man's wife called 911 before going into the water after him. Emergency responders transported the man to Peninsula Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, Thomson said.

A 31-year-old man who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Baltimore after he pleaded guilty to possessing 5.9 grams of marijuana won an appeal Wednesday invalidating the plea — raising the possibility that he will be released.